


Stan's (Satan's) Halloween Party

by Gecko47



Category: I'm the Grim Reaper (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Office Party, Office Setting, Suffering, scarlet does not want to be there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28244613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gecko47/pseuds/Gecko47
Summary: For once, Scarlet had made herself plans outside her job. It was Halloween night and she was going to sit at the desk with an assorted bag of candy she had convinced Chase was for the trick-or-treaters (totally not herself) and play Fatecraft all night until she passed out at 5 am and had to go to work at 6. She was genuinely excited.Of course things had to go wrong. Of course they did.
Relationships: Chase Carter/Scarlet | Grim Reaper
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

For once, Scarlet had made herself plans outside her job. It was Halloween night and she was going to sit at the desk with an assorted bag of candy she had convinced Chase was for the trick-or-treaters (totally not herself) and play Fatecraft all night until she passed out at 5 am and had to go to work at 6. She was genuinely excited.

Of course things had to go wrong. _Of course_ they did.

Apparently there had been an issue with work, something that probably could’ve waited, but knowing her sadistic boss, there was no way in hell _that_ would happen.

So she changed into her job uniform, put on her most violent scowl, moved the candy somewhere Lightie wouldn’t find it, and trudged off to go do the job that was slowly sucking her soul away. In a sense the idea of actually getting a break for a night sounded like a fairy tale. This was much more realistic.

Reality was the worst.

Her coworker, Brook (no last name) was hanging outside the work building, texting on his sparkly iPhone 5. He wasn’t even in his uniform.

“Were you planning on going out?” Scarlet asked, stopping beside him and giving his white-and-pink costume a once over. He had a hot-pink bow resting atop his pale hair and a shirt that was cropped slightly. She knew Brook had tattoos, probably as many as she had scars, but that didn’t mean she wanted to _see_ them.

“I always dress like this,” he replied in that dead-pan sort of way where she didn’t know if he was kidding or if he liked to walk around his house looking like an anime rabbit-boy. She decided she frankly didn’t care enough to ask.

The two of them stood in grumpy silence for about two more minutes, before the office doors slammed open.

“SCARLET~! BROOK~! SO HAPPY YOU COULD MAKE IT!” Came the too-loud voice of their boss. He was wearing a monochrome Hawaiian shirt with a golden necklace, darkened glasses, and an unusually pointy set of devil horns. If he dropped his head, he could probably impale one of them. Scarlet made the executive decision that if he started to charge, Brook would be her meat shield. And from the way he was glancing at her, it appeared Brook had made a similar decision with Scarlet.

Stan, their boss and resident demon-crime boss-evil tourist(?), waved his hand, “Come on inside!”

“Why are we here?” Scarlet held her ground and crossed her arms.

Brook just shrugged and walked in.

“Wha- Brook?”

“There’s better WiFi and heating in there,” he just muttered, disappearing up the flight of steps and leaving Scarlet alone and meat-shield-less.

Stan’s smile widened to the point where its corners had disappeared behind his glasses. “I said, it was urgent business. You better come in and see!”

She frowned, “You made it sound like we’d lose our jobs if we didn’t come here. You at least owe us an explanation,” ‘Us’ didn’t carry as much weight now that Brook was lounging at his comfy desk but Scarlet refused to simply give in.

Stan laughed cheerfully - a sound like a pop-corn popper pelting a clown to death, “Oh, I was dead serious about the job. You’ll be fired if you don’t come along~!”

Ice gathered in the pit of her stomach. Crap, Scarlet could not afford to lose this job. As much as she’d enjoy just walking away right now, not looking back at all, like a total badass, she simple could not afford it. Scarlet was over her head in student loans and her roommate/friend Chase had been laid off work temporarily because he impaled himself. Not to mention Lightie’s dental surgery, the cost of fixing the computer keyboard after Scarlet accidentally broke the space bar, and the general price of living as a decent human being.

Shit.

Scarlet brushed past Stan and marched up the stairs, half trying to convince herself, ‘hey…how bad can this possibly be?’

That was a lapse in judgement. See, Stan was their manager, and he had quickly decided if he couldn’t make his employees love him like a father, he was going to make their work experience a living hell for his own amusement. The kind of man who liked seeing the less fortunate dance in the palm of his hand.

As soon as she saw the plastic jack-o-lanterns, the banner saying ‘SPOOKY TIME’ in violent orange and black ink, and the cobwebs plastering the walls, three inches thick, Scarlet knew she was doomed. Brook was sitting at his desk, on his phone, reclining as far away as possible from the beady-eyed spider placed on his computer screen.

Stan trotted in after them and shut the door, smiling brightly at them.

“…Why?” Scarlet only asked.

He might as well be leading them down to a torture basement.

“You see, my dear Scarlet and Brook, you two seemed so sad and alone. Spending halloween night all hunched over in your houses- tch, tch, tch,” he shook his head slightly, eyes squinting, “I just had to save you.”

“Save us? I’ll have you know I was perfectly happy where I was!” Scarlet cried, shooting him a seething glare.

“Sure you were, dear,” he only brushed her off, “My point is, I gathered to here tonight for a lovely little office party~! It’s going to be so much fun!”

A party with only Scarlet, Brook, and Stan sounded about as fun as having her organs pecked out by birds.

Perhaps Stan knew that, and that was why he brought them here. Or he had an even worse surprise, waiting and lurking.

“Where’s Three?” Brook broke out of his myspace stupor long enough to squint around the room.

“Three won employee of the month this month and therefore wasn’t forced to come,” Stan just shrugged. Then grinned, “but we simply can’t have a party with only two people, no matter how fun they are!”

Scarlet and Brook exchanged a glance of unified dread as he clapped his hands. And the back door opened up.

There were four people filing into the room, and unfortunately Scarlet knew each of them personally. Oh, how she hated them…most of them.

There was Jordan, a young man who used to work there and had tricked Scarlet into going on a date with him. It hadn’t gone anywhere, but she hadn’t realized it was a date until two months later, when Chase explained it. Then, she HR-ed his ass for tricking her and they hadn’t spoken since.

There was Anna, someone who had been fired shortly after Jordan as per Scarlet’s request when Stan asked her who she thought was disposable. She was glaring straight at them.

Liam, Anna’s childhood friend, who was basically a whipped puppy in human form. He was the only one Scarlet didn’t objectively loathe, but still there was something off about him. Ever since Anna was fired, she had the sneaking suspicion he wanted to get his revenge on the company.

And lastly, Bernadette. She was the new HR, the worst yet, and she seemed to be looking for a reason to go above Stan’s head and fire everyone. To be honest, that was probably the only reason she agreed to attend this ‘party.’

Well that sorted out the first issue of there not being enough guests. Scarlet wished she could go back to listening to halloween music while Stan ranted about his vacation to the Himalayas while Brook live-tweeted his dislike of both of them. That sounded like a paradise right about now.

Jordan smiled at her, but not in a nice way. Like he wanted stab her through with a knife and watch the blood pour out. That might’ve seemed oddly specific, but from the dangerous light in his eyes, Scarlet felt like she could pin-point it. Also his ghost costume sucked.

Liam waved. He was in armor.

Anna glared. She had a witch hat and nothing else.

Bernadette, in a whole Amazon-purchased angel costume, wrote something down on her clipboard.

Feeling slightly faint, Scarlet balled up her fists and stared down Stan.

“I need to make a phone call,” she said tightly.

“Don’t be too long~ we wouldn’t want to delay the fun,” he called but she was already marching down the hallway.

“Chase, are you there?”

“Right here. What’s wrong?”

What wasn’t wrong? Scarlet sighed, and drew her legs in a little tighter. She was in the hallway, curled up behind a giant fern, talking into her phone in a tight whisper in case someone was eaves dropping. Though at the same time, why was she being so sneaky? Stan already knew she hated it here. In fact,he was practically thriving off of that negative energy.

“I’m not injured or anything,” she started, “but Stan has me trapped in some kind of wretched halloween party with all of the people I despise.”

There was a pause.

“That man is a prime example of what’s wrong with this world,”

“Chase, you deal with murderers as a day job.” She said, though honestly she felt a little relieved by his validation.

“So? Anyway, why don’t you just come home. I can give you a ride,”

“No, don’t do that. I’ll lose my job. Not to mention you shouldn’t be moving right now,” she objected quickly.

She could imagine his concentrated frown as he weighed their options. He knew as well as she did how they needed her job, and as much as he wanted to help her, he finally just said, “Alright, I won’t do that. Try to focus on surviving the night and do what you can for yourself. Lightie and I are waiting at home for you,”

Scarlet nodded. The prospect of going home and escaping this nightmare filled her with a false sense of bliss, as she imagined the car ride back, free from her boss’s whim. Then the realization that she still had at least four hours of ‘partying’ left filled her with an abysmal sense of dread.

Trying to pull herself out of the misery, Scarlet asked, “How’s your stab wound?”

“It’s fine,” he replied a tad too quickly.

“Are you sure? You sneezed yesterday and started bleeding.”

He sighed over the phone, his voice crackled with static. Ferns were not known for their good reception.

“I hope Lightie sits on your lap and prevents you from getting up and hurting yourself. I better go before Stan drags me back himself,” Scarlet said, poking her head through the screen of leaves and checking the area for signs of him. She was probably still alone.

“Stay safe out there,”

“Yeah, you too,”

She hung up and stood up from behind the bush, picking leaves out of her hair and staggering towards the annex where Stan’s torture-party was being held. Both of her legs were asleep from being hunched over in that position, and she was too distracted by that to notice the figure standing beside the door, so pale he practicallyblended in.

“It seems you’ve found someone else’s heart to toy with,” Jordan said from where he was, propped against the pasty wall like he was posing for a magazine photoshoot on asshole pretty boys.

Scarlet shot him a glare. Alright, current objective, avoid _him_.

She had pieced together a survival plan, surprisingly. Perhaps all that time spent with Chase had had an impact on her.

Step one, get Anna talking about one of her self-published books.

Step two, get Stan talking about one of his vacations to Alaska.

Step three, get them trapped in each others monologues for hopefully a couple hours.

Step four, get Bernadette to check Brook’s browser history while he’s there. Should distract both of them, what with her questions and his explanations. How many people ordered canisters of chicken blood and hello-kitty sweaters in the same bundle?

Step five, spend the rest of the night talking about Fatecraft with Liam while skirting any heavy topics. The guy was too trusting and Scarlet was scared to death he might suddenly decide to lay something heavy on her, like an unrequited love confession or a failed murder attempt.

Serious topics were for Chase and Chase alone. And sometimes Lightie, if Scarlet needed a hug and didn’t want to jostle Chase’s stab wound too much.

Thankfully Stan was already reclining in his chair, loafers up on the table, sipping a glass of wine and discussing how cool the half-frozen-to-death Alaskan wildlife was. She wasn’t in the mood to hear about squirrels withhypothermia, so Scarlet hurried past him (and Liam, who was nodding along politely, and Anna, who was reaching for the wine bottle).

Bernadette had brandished a measuring tape like a sword and was checking the gaps between the desks because god forbid Stan abuse his employees by keeping them in too-tight work environments.

Brook was on his phone again.

Scarlet leaned over his shoulder. His phone wallpaper was a white rabbit on a pink, fluffy pillow. It looked like he was opening and closing his social media sites monotonously, waiting for something to happen. He turned and glared at her as soon as he sensed her presence.

“…You want to see my roommates pet?” Scarlet suggested in an earnest attempt to make conversation/survive the night.

He squinted ather like she was a child that had just offered him a pastry out of mud. But he didn’t refuse.

Scarlet held up a picture of Lightie on her phone.

“…Oi, why does your roommate’s dog look like a-“

She shut the phone. He did not deserve Lightie.

For the next hour, Jordan’s gaze followed her like a haunting presence. Part of her wished he’d just stab her already and give her some peace to bleed out. But it was getting worse with every minute.

Stan actually had bought candy, but it was so mismatched either he had bought way too much of every candy available or he had robbed a group of 10 years olds. She wasn’t sure. She only know that cotton-candy flavored lollypops were pale comparisons to real cotton candy and Liam was one of those people that actually liked candy corn, but Anna didn’t, so to ‘subtly’ appease her, he went on a 7 minutes rant on why candy corn was the worst.

Scarlet was in the middle of trying to cram butterfingers into her pockets (Chase loved them) when Jordan materialized beside her.

“I’m not bitter or anything,” he said gently, which was a greater lie than Chase’s ‘I’m fine’ speech yesterday. “But what’s your new person like?”

His expression was droll, buthis hands were behind his back, like he was hiding something (like a knife). Or maybe that’s just how he stood. Scarlet backed away, drawing her hands out of the butter finger bowl and crossing her arms.

“Oh-“ his aqua gaze flitted from the bowl to her stuffed pockets, “do they enjoy those?”

“…No, these are for me, I won’t share them with anyone,” she replied flatly, before stepping back, weaving through the tables, even hopping over a desk, and flopping down beside Stan.

“Hm?” he glanced over at her slyly.

“Oi, tell me about - um - the vacation,” she said desperately, fingernails digging into the wood.

His smile upturned and he whirled around in his spinning office chair, “Brook, get the camera! Scarlet is actually talking to me again!” He cried in delight, “I knew this party would lead to good things!!”

Brook did not, in fact, get the camera.

So Stan told her about the vacation, the ice, the quaint little restaurants and unusual locals and the rumors pertaining to both, the animals and their migration patterns, what the tour guides said when a teenager got his foot stuck in the ice. It was so long and tedious the way he described it, that by the time it was over, she was ready to claw her eyes out and die.

But Jordan was still there, so she urged him to tell her more.

By the time he was done with that monologue, Anna had packed up and left, leaving Liam looking lonely in the middle of the room, Jordan had gotten bored of tormenting Scarlet and was whispering something to Brook, and Stan was ever so slightly out of breath.

“Exciting, isn’t it? We should talk more often,” he grinned, after he finished describing how interesting the shower system was at his over-priced hotel.

Scarlet had made the resolution that she was not going anywhere remotely cold ever again, heating bills be damned. She nodded along vaguely, then stopped, realizing what she was agreeing to.

“Um-“

“No way out of it!!” He smacked her shoulder gleefully. “Oh- you better deal with Liam, he looks as lost as ever!~”

Scarlet eyed him from across the room. He was sadly filling a cup with candy corn, the candy he had betrayed for the sake of love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second and final half of this because yall seemed to like it a lot.

Reluctantly Scarlet joined Liam’s side.

“Hi,” she forced herself to say.

“Hey,” he smiled up at her.

Awkwardness hung in the air like fog. Scarlet cleared her throat and began to say, “So, FateCraft Halloween purchase pack, have you bought any-“ when he instead interrupted her with, “Do you think Anna loves me?”

She stared at him blankly. Then the words processed.

Oh no, oh no, oh no no no. This was the kind of thing she was trying to avoid, and here he was, puppy-eyed and earnest, waiting for an answer.

“Um…sure she does,” Scarlet’s voice cracked up a bit at the end.

He sighed and ran a nervous hand through his dyed hair, “I mean…I know she cares about me, ever since we were kids, but I was thinking romantic love. Y’know, like Tver the Wolfblood and Queen Elsya from-“

“…The Blue Castle Quest, yes, I’m familiar,” Scarlet bit back a huff of annoyance. Those two were her least favorite FateCraft NPCs and she had had to deal with their overtly suggestive dialogue to each other. It was the only way to get the paw-print adventure’s boots, which was something she wanted to gift to Chase for his birthda-

Shit, Liam was still staring at her.

“I don’t think real relationships are like the ones in FateCraft, Liam. And I’m not very experienced in the field,” she finally just said.

“Ohoho, I suppose that’s true,” came the silky voice of Jordan. Reflexively, Scarlet grabbed a handful of candy corn and whirled around it throw at him, but he was unfortunately out of range. Weaving between the desks, ducking under Bernadette (who was measuring the width of their obsolete computers), and skirting the sidelines like an annoying poltergeist, Jordan remained elusively out of her reach. Good for him, Scarlet would have throttled him otherwise.

She shot a glare over.

“I believe you, Scarlet,” Liam said softly from her side, “if this was a story, I’d probably be in the middle part. Where the author is teasing the audience with a big ‘will-they-won’t-they’ plot before we end up together,” he smiled, “It’ll work out, I know it will.”

“If our lives were a story, the genre would be horror,” Scarlet narrowed her eyes at Stan, who was smirking idly and sipping from his wine glass.

“I’m sorry it’s like that for you.”

She almost bristled at his sympathetic tone. “No, no, it’s fine, I guess.” She grabbed a handful of Reeses cups, “I better bring these to Brook. We ah- might run out.”

The excuse was thin, but any extra moment she could spend pelting Brook with tiny chocolate and peanut butter cups was a moment to herself, to her sanity.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said as she drew closer.

“Worried I’ll stain your clothes?”

He glanced down at his pale shirt as if confirming it was still there, then huffed, “You smear crap on it, you buy me a new one.”

She tossed a warning Reeses up into the air, then caught it again in her fist, “Want one?”

“No. And do you mind? I’m trying to text here.”

At that she threw the candy at him and managed to knock his hot pink bow slightly askew before he whirled around, pointed his phone at her, and snapped, “Do that one more time and you’re on my blog for the worst reasons!”

She backed away after that, not quite sure why she was so intent on messing with him but at the same time pretty damn sure he deserved it. He was quick to forgive anyway, despite his bitter exterior.

Oh, what else to do to entertain oneself…

Jordan was stalking around the outskirts, hands in his pockets, smiling in that way where his mouth wasn’t wide enough but his eyeballs were stretched all the way open. Bernadette was measuring something else Scarlet didn’t care enough to ask about. And then there was a Liam…oh Liam. Nope.

That train of thought led down a nasty rabbit hole and she soon found herself back where she started.

At this point in the night, Stan’s monologue quickly turned from explaining his vacation and trying to make everyone jealous, to instead mournfully ranting about his toxic older brother (who he only ever referred to as ‘Big G’ for some reason) in a vain attempt to make the others feel pity towards him. Perhaps he was relying on Stockholm syndrome. Wait, didn’t he do that all the time?

When he finished to go stew in self pity, Jordan intervened with a decently good suggestion. “We have computers, we have the wifi, why don’t we pirate a scary movie?”

The suggestions were instantaneous.

“We can’t have anything NSFW in the work place,” Bernadette said as she withdrew her measuring tape with a loud snap. Funny, she didn’t have any qualms actually _pirating_ the movie.

“Maybe something cute like Nightmare Before Christmas or Coraline,” Jordan smiled, making Liam flinch.

“Anna’s son watched that last one and it scared the crap outta me. I had to watch _so many_ small puppy videos just to feel like myself again. I am not doing that again,” he shook his head quickly, “how about the FateCraft Netflix movie? It’s not a scary movie, but the horror I experienced watching it was like nothing of this earth,”

Scarlet snorted, “you actually watched that trash?”

“What can I say, I’m a fanatic,”

_About Fatecraft and about Anna, it seems._

Scarlet sighed, taking it upon herself to join in, “The Fatecraft movie sucked. I’m not against watching a terrible movie to make fun of how bad it is-“ _might distract me from how bad this party is- “_ \- but we can do a lot worse. It’s only really atrocious if you know the video games. If you don’t, its just another movie with dragons and big men hitting each other with swords. Who here has played it?”

“I’m an adult,” Stan said from his wine glass with a dull smirk.

“Too violent, it shows the worst sides of humanity. I will not indulge,” Bernadette scoffed.

“Nah,” Brook didn’t even look up.

“I do,” Liam said, like she didn't know that already/like that wasn’t his one redeemable trait.

Jordan only smiled, “It appears we’re divided, right Scarlet?”

“Right. We need something universally bad. Like…the Cat’s Movie. We hadn’t seen the musical, but that thing permanently changed Chase-“ She snapped her mouth shut.

Oh. Oh shit.

Jordan’s smile twisted upwards like a crescent moon and Scarlet felt her face flush with heat. No no no no no. The anger and embarrassment in her chest seemed to rise, until she was barely swallowing back the torrent of a screeching, angry, demonic beast that wanted to single-handedly gut everyone in the room. How could she give up his name to these relentless people?

Instead, in a very small voice, she just swallowed, “I need to ah…fix my makeup. See you guys in a minute.”

And she turned around without waiting for a response. If anyone had spoken, she would’ve blocked them out anyway.

When Scarlet reappeared, she felt oddly light headed. The overhead of the office was too bright and the set of cobwebs she accidentally walked into were too sticky. It was then that she realized she was covered with sweat. Great.

She hadn’t called Chase, or even texted him. Only taken out her phone and started at their messages conversations, scrolling back through time, until she remembered that she in fact had a life outside of the hell of this party. By going through those words she came to several conclusions: one, Chase was probably one of the most wonderful people she’d met, two, one of the Lightie pics he sent her had been ‘un-hearted’ and she had had to change that immediately, and three, her text speak might have been bad but at least it wasn’t like Brooks’.

When she came back everyone was hunched around a boxy television Bernadette dragged from the annex. At first it looked like they were setting up a movie, then she heard Jordan saying to Stan, “see, we should turn the brightness up so the words are easier to read.”

She froze up instantly, suddenly snapped into focus.

“Liam…Liam this better not be what I think it is,” she hissed, appeared at his side.

He grimaced, “It’s an old machine, so we can’t get any of those cool Fatecraft fan songs…”

“Karaoke? Are you serious, we’re doing fucking karaoke?” She whispered.

Liam looked a little baffled by her anger. “…Yeah? Stan found one in the back for some reason. Maybe his stories about this office building once being a hit bar for bad people aren’t completely false. I just wish Anna was here, I have an entire google doc of songs I want to share with her…”

“Instead of a Spotify playlist?” Brook looked up and spat those words the same way one would say, ‘disgusting heathen.’

“I’m surprised you even know what that is, bug-man,” He whirled on her, no doubt offended by Scarlet’s cutting and very clever insult. That’s right. She researched his blog to come up with stuff like that. But he only narrowed his eyes and scrolled even faster, in rage.

“Both of you, cut it out. We need this to be a safe and respectful workplace environment,” Bernadette broke in, her arms crossed in a disapproving teacher-look.

Those words hung over their heads for a little while and nobody agreed with them. She eventually huffed and went over, inspecting the machine, “you sure this isn’t dangerous? It might be prone to combustion,”

“Now THAT would be fun,” Stan grinned. He seemed to be back to his regular infuriating self. Finding new ways to terrorize his employees did that to him. “But yes, it’s completely safe!!”

_Not if I throttle you for bringing it out in the first place._ Scarlet stared blankly at the boxy machine.

“I have a few songs,” Stan continued, dusting off the top of it and rubbing his now gray fingers, “Hotel California, Don’t Fear the Reaper, any and all Journey Songs-“

“And I have some too,” Jordan said, looking like a malevolent cat staring down at a nest of sparrows, “not all for me. In fact, I picked out some for you, you, you, and you,” he pointed in turn to Brook, Liam, Bernadette, and finally Scarlet.

“Er, sure, can’t say I’ll be any good at it, but I’ll take suggestions,” Liam gave him a small apologetic smile.

“Kill me now,” Brook only murmured.

It was at that moment, that pivotal moment of dread and despair and wanting to rip Jordan’s too-blue eyes out of his thick skull, that the door knocked.

Liam jumped. Bernadette stiffened. Scarlet whirled around, so did Stan. And Brook checked his phone again. Generally office buildings didn’t receive visitors at 1 AM on Halloween night (or November 1st morning)so either this was robbers or the cops.

“Can someone get that?” Jordan asked lightly.

Bernadette immediately walked over, all business-like, like she was ready to sue the shit out of the person standing in the doorway, or explain exactly which rules they were violating. She was rather tall and her form blocked the door, until she turned around and said, “Scarlet, one of your family members had a medical emergency and you need to go.”

“…WHA?” Scarlet didn’t have any relatives. Maybe the old Scarlet had, the one before her amnesia, drug incident, college drop out, homeless-gang-fun-period, but not the new fixed Scarlet. No, and there was really only one other person she was remotely close to. And if it was him-

As she pushed her way past others and stepped around the cluster of chairs and plastic pumpkins, her heart began to hammer. Had Chase reopened his stitches somehow? Bled out? Started coughing blood again?

Her mind swam. She wouldn’t be able to afford rent without him but…more importantly, she wouldn’t be able to exist without him. In this stupid dead end job, with these sadistic psychos, if _he_ died- no, he wasn’t dead, it was a medical _emergency_. As she stumbled over a foam and glitter skeleton hand, Scarlet swore that she would work as many hours as it took, as many jobs as needed, to pay for his hospital bills. She knew that fact with more certainty than she had ever felt before. Well, because it was Chase. And she’d do anything to help him.

All of this happened in a span of about fifteen seconds and by the time Bernadette stepped aside, Scarlet was in such a panicked state she barely processed what was in front of her.

“CHASE?” She gasped before she could clap a hand over her mouth. There he was, squinting over at her in the too-bright lights. His hair had a golden quality in the fluorescents. He had managed to pull a sports jacket over his sweats/recovery clothes, and he had a cat-themed mask from the pandemic phase over his mouth. His gaze traveled from the ‘SPOOKY TIME’ banner, to Scarlet’s gaping coworkers, before finally settling on her. 

It seemed he’d do anything for her.

His eyes screwed up like he was smiling at her, and Scarlet wanted to wrap her arms around him and weep. But she couldn't because (1) he had been recently stabbed and (2) literally everyone she had worked with (minus Anna) was staring at them.

So instead she just managed to get out, “…what.”

“You need to come quickly. Your Aunt Rosalind is in the hospital,” he said in his clipped professional voice.

“But I don’t have a-“

“The doctor’s say she isn’t going to make it,” he looked down for a moment, as if overcome, then turned to Bernadette, “Will you excuse us?”

“AWW, WE WERE JUST HAVING FUN,” Stan cried from the beat up karaoke machine.

“You cannot abuse your power as boss, this is a family emergency,” Bernadette snapped, “Mrs. Scarlet, I am so sorry for your loss,”

“I’m coming too!” To her surprise, Brook pushed past Liam to go stand by them.

Scarlet gave him a skeptical look and he scowled, “The woman practically raised me, show some respect,”

“Come on then,” Chase looked him over with interest (or maybe he was just trying to figure out why on earth Brook was dressed like an anime bunny).

“Just a sec, gotta grab my bag,”

Scarlet hurried over to her desk to pick up her cheap black purse (which was stuffed with even more Reese’s and Butterfingers). Jordan stopped her a moment, lolling over his desk. “So THAT’S your man. I wonder how long he’ll last before you finish playing with his heart and reap it for a newer, better boyfriend,” he said with a smirk.

“Burn in hell, Jordan,” Scarlet just said tiredly, “before I HR your ass like I did last time.”

He turned a degree paler as she turned around and walked as quickly as she could (honestly she’d rather be sprinting) to Brook and Chase.

“How’d you find me?” They were in the car. Brook was in the backseat, Chase was behind the wheel, and Scarlet was staring out the window of the passenger seat. She didn't want either of them to see how smudged her eyeliner was after she got a tad emotional in the parking lot.

“You hearted a picture of Lightie from two weeks ago. I knew something was wrong,” he replied.

She glanced over, a strange warmth gathering in her chest. “Thank you. I should’ve known you’d do that, since, y’know, you’re the detective.”

He had pulled down the mask when they entered the car and she saw the flash of a smile in a passing street lamp.

“If this is going anywhere, can you just leave me on the side of the curb,” Brook groaned.

Scarlet turned to glare at him but Chase chuckled in a nervous, self conscious sort of way. Unfortunately that only led to him coughing. He quickly covered his mouth, looking pained.

“Alright, we’re going home before you actually have a medical emergency,” Scarlet gave him a concerned look.

“I’m fine-“

“You were stabbed-“

“Please, just take me _home_ ,”

With a tired sigh, Scarlet turned, “Brook I don’t care where the hell you live, we aren’t driving you that far with Chase like this, so you get the couch.”

“…Is there WiFi?”

“…Yes…”

“Good. Give it to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow man, that was one ride of a fanfic. I'll have you know I wrote the entire thing in three sittings, so...follow your dreams, kids. Thank you all so much for the lovely comments though <33 that's the real reason I was able to get this far. I hope the ending was just as funny as the beginning.


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